Sonnet 75

William Shakespeare · 1609

Catalog grade guidance: 9–12 — English sonnet; dense metaphor—best with notes for younger high-school readers.

15 content lines · 121 words · Est. recitation about 1 min 7 sec (approx.)

Public-domain text for reading and recitation practice. Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #1041, Shakespeare's Sonnets.Estimated time uses ~120 words/minute plus short pauses—not a contest rule.

LXXV

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better’d that the world may see my pleasure:
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
    Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
    Or gluttoning on all, or all away.